Seems reasonable enough. Actually looks somewhat like Inuktitut, although that has /q/ instead of /χ/

On the note of Inuktitut, initially, my only real issue was /ʤ/, but apparently the Natsilingmiutut dialect has /ɟ/, so close enough.

Re: Phonemes

Posted: 03 Nov 2017 00:38

by qwed117

(Also, imo, seems pretty similar to Arabic, which I don't think has tʃ, but has d͡ʒ)

Re: Phonemes

Posted: 03 Nov 2017 01:26

by sangi39

qwed117 wrote:(Also, imo, seems pretty similar to Arabic, which I don't think has tʃ, but has d͡ʒ)

Which I always found interesting. IIRC, Arabic /dʒ/ derives from an older /g/, just fronting it, then shifting to an affricate, but that process didn't affect Old Arabic /k/, except in a few dialects like Iraqi Arabic. The universal fronting of Old Arabic /g/ must have happened before the dialectal fronting of Old Arabic /k/ and that's interesting as hell!

Re: Phonemes

Posted: 08 Nov 2017 16:29

by Isfendil

sangi39 wrote:

qwed117 wrote:(Also, imo, seems pretty similar to Arabic, which I don't think has tʃ, but has d͡ʒ)

Which I always found interesting. IIRC, Arabic /dʒ/ derives from an older /g/, just fronting it, then shifting to an affricate, but that process didn't affect Old Arabic /k/, except in a few dialects like Iraqi Arabic. The universal fronting of Old Arabic /g/ must have happened before the dialectal fronting of Old Arabic /k/ and that's interesting as hell!

Just a few clarifications- the fronting of k is a conditioned change not an unconditional one. Furthermore, the dialect of Cairo preserves the original sound of /g/ unconditionally. This is because the dialects are not direct descendants of classical arabic but rather mixed languages, descended from divergent dialects that were held to a conservative form by the common knowledge of the classical language barring certain exceptional areas such as the western half of North Africa (this is not because of its nature as a frontier- there are farther places such as sudan with more conservative dialects).

Generally the reason why this weird stuff happens to semitic languages is because the nature of the root system can very easily cause conditional changes to become unconditional due to analogy, as more and more stems of a root are affected. This is also why not only arabic but most arabian langs have a /b/ but no /f/ (then this assymetry spread areally).

Re: Phonemes

Posted: 08 Nov 2017 19:35

by sangi39

Isfendil wrote:

sangi39 wrote:

qwed117 wrote:(Also, imo, seems pretty similar to Arabic, which I don't think has tʃ, but has d͡ʒ)

Which I always found interesting. IIRC, Arabic /dʒ/ derives from an older /g/, just fronting it, then shifting to an affricate, but that process didn't affect Old Arabic /k/, except in a few dialects like Iraqi Arabic. The universal fronting of Old Arabic /g/ must have happened before the dialectal fronting of Old Arabic /k/ and that's interesting as hell!

Just a few clarifications- the fronting of k is a conditioned change not an unconditional one. Furthermore, the dialect of Cairo preserves the original sound of /g/ unconditionally. This is because the dialects are not direct descendants of classical arabic but rather mixed languages, descended from divergent dialects that were held to a conservative form by the common knowledge of the classical language barring certain exceptional areas such as the western half of North Africa (this is not because of its nature as a frontier- there are farther places such as sudan with more conservative dialects).

Thaaaank you! I thought there was a dialect of Arabic that preserved /g/, but I couldn't for the life me if a) it existed at all and b) which dialect it was if it did exist.

Re: Phonemes

Posted: 09 Nov 2017 18:48

by Davush

Some Yemeni dialects have /ɟ/ instead of /g/ - I can’t remember if this was supposed to be the earlier form but Yemeni has had /g/ for /q/ for a long time, so much so that some reciters of the Quran always use /g/. Interestingly Gulf dialects have /q/ > /g/ > /dʒ/ near front vowels e.g. qariib becomes jriib, muqaabil is mjaabil etc. Sharjah in the UAE is actually Shaariqah.

Re: Phonemes

Generally the reason why this weird stuff happens to semitic languages is because the nature of the root system can very easily cause conditional changes to become unconditional due to analogy, as more and more stems of a root are affected. This is also why not only arabic but most arabian langs have a /b/ but no /f/ (then this assymetry spread areally).

I'm guessing you mean /b/ but no /p/? In any case, that's a good explanation for the fronting of /g/, but I'm less sure about the labials. Lenition of /p/ to a fricative (while /b/ remains unaffected) seems to be a fairly common sound change and not really dependent on other features of the language. For example, it's taken place in Japanese, which is about as far from triconsonantal root systems as you can get.